Pass it on

IT TOOK more than a decade for the Human Genome Project to sequence the 24 different human chromosomes, but already other researchers are preparing to take another huge step. They have shown it is possible make artificial chromosomes that can pass from one generation to the next.

Such techniques might soon make it possible to treat patients by loading their cells with extra chromosomes that are purpose-built to produce a therapeutic protein and operate entirely independently of our natural chromosomes. It might even be possible to treat genetic diseases with extra chromosomes that can themselves be inherited, though this would mean challenging the taboo against "germline" gene therapy.

The ground has been laid in experiments on animals at a Canadian biotechnology company. A new paper by Deborah Co and her colleagues at Chromos Molecular Systems in Burnaby, British Columbia, describes for the first time a mouse that passed such a ...

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